Fantasy
by yeyavailability
Summary: Ryou misses someone. [Weird, Character death]


Warning: Character death.

* * *

Bakura's skin was white.

It was not miraculously smooth, but rough; expected from someone like the King of the streets. It was not, in any way, milky or attractively pale – if anything, it was a faint gray, beautifully tainted with the occasional red. It blended into his hair, chalk white and frayed; he would not develop whiter hairs, but soon enough they will fall.

Bakura watched with no expression as Ryou scribbled words on a lined piece of paper, Japanese characters that he could not understand. _I miss you..._he 'd written. It probably meant the world to Ryou, though, so he left the boy to his activities.

"I'm heading out," he'd almost said, but upon seeing the heart wrenchingly beautiful smile on the Light's lips, he backed away and quietly left. Ryou had never smiled like that around him.

-

His lips were chapped.

When Ryou had treated his face – there'd been a pretty bruise, running from the hairline edge of his forehead to where his scar used to end – he'd cried into his shoulder. Bakura could not offer comfort to the shaking form, for his muscles were numb and his jaw hung loose.

"Oei," he tried nevertheless, an incoherent sound that wouldn't have meant a thing anyway. Ryou gave a brief smile at the stupidity of it all, lips wavering through his tears, then squeezed him again and sobbed hysterically.

"I _missed_ you," he'd bawled, "I wish they would _stop_ this. No more. They almost…" He wept, as if reliving a horrible nightmare.

Bakura closed his eyes.

"I want that, too," he'd answered, and Ryou had to push up his jaw just so his face would stay connected.

The bruise took a month to fade, and when he looks into the mirror, he fails to see the difference.

-

His eyes were brown.

They were not his own, but Ryou's – he stares more intently at his reflection, and notices nothing. Ryou's were brown, also, but on his face and with his smile, it almost looked like they shone.

_This face is __Ryou's__, too_, he reminds himself, and sees how much he's ruined it. It was a disgusting sight.

_I__t's mine._

-

Bakura's hands were shaking.

He laughed. His body shook with every chuckle, stomach convulsing with impossible pain. He only laughed harder, watching the way his blood bubbled from the wound, wondering if it was normal. He'd scrubbed soap over it. It did not burn, but merely tingled. The sensation was that of an itch, and he laughed again when he washed it in the boiling pot of water, feeling cold. He'd be eating from that for dinner tonight. He hoped Ryou didn't mind the flavor of soap he used.

"This tastes strange," Ryou commented, chewing the food thoughtfully. Then he frowned, staring up at Bakura with his shining eyes. "I hope it's not too horrible…"

Bakura smiled lazily, enjoying the flavorless taste of his blood on his tongue. "It's fine," he dismissed, "I'm fine."

Ryou grinned back, all brightness and sincerity, thinking about the time when he had cooked for his true family. Bakura couldn't bear to watch.

-

He threw up blood.

At first, it had been a mere twisting at his stomach – nothing short of discomfort, but nothing more. He'd ignored it and let it turn, figuring that it must have been the soap.

He hadn't exactly expected it to fade so soon, and it didn't. It grew instead – a slow, stinging burn at the pit of his stomach, making him frown as he stared at the blank sheet. Gradually, as if teasing, the burning erupted into flames. Bakura did not gasp when it did so – he merely stared harder at the page, reading the nothingness over and over, praying that the pain would go away.

As if answering his prayer, he could hear the gods laughing. The impossible clenching at his stomach tightened, and he had to grit his teeth just not to gasp. He didn't need to do this; there was no one in the house. His body convulsed in rhythm with the throbbing stings, and he frantically tried to reread the blank piece of paper before him. On it, he could see the messily erased lines of Ryou's face, scribbled over and rubbed out again –

"Bakura?"

He prayed once more. His hands shook, gripping the pencil like a lifeline. His eyes started to water against his will – his breaths came out short and airy, and it was impossible to inhale before panting out. He gripped at his jeans with his free hand, seeing the back of his head.

Vaguely, he could hear hurried footsteps, and he whimpered. _Don't look at me!_ He screamed, _Don't__ look don't look don't look_ –

"Bakura!"

Ryou did not run fast enough to catch him into his arms, and he would not have had the strength. Instead, he stood frozen as Bakura collapsed, trembling on the floor like he was dying all over again.

Bakura did not move; he stayed completely still, not crying, not gasping – Ryou wasn't sure if he was even breathing anymore.

The gods laughed harder.

-

Bakura looked pitiful.

Feminine, almost, in his fragile structure, derived from Ryou's own. Ryou held his impossibly thin hands in his own, eyes gazed over under his tears. He ran his fingers through Bakura's gray-white hair, down his chin, felt the dry, deathliness of his skin, to the faintly pulsing width of his wrist. He thought back to the time when he held a thinner wrist, leading to a thinner arm; a delicate, dying image of the girl with bruises around her eye, clutching at the spot on her stomach where the car hit. The wounds never quite healed, just faded in visibility.

_I miss you…_

Bakura did not awake.

_…Amane…_

_

* * *

_

Well that was blatantly obvious. Must slap self. It started out as one of those 'I'm bored and on writer's block but am stupid enough to write' fics, where it went no where. After some more boredom I added the parts about Amane. I don't even know anymore. I feel so incredibly lame for putting tragedy as a genre, I don't think this counts.

Bleugh. Anyone know how to make it so your writing style doesn't make paragraphs and sentances jump?


End file.
